Your guide to NYC's public proceedings.
REMARKS
Chair Richard R. Buery Jr. on the NYC Charter Revision Commission's mission and public hearing process
0:00:04
·
3 min
Chair Richard R. Buery Jr. welcomes attendees to the public hearing of the New York City Charter Revision Commission.
He outlines the commission's mission to review the entire charter and suggest changes for voters' consideration, with a particular focus on the city's housing crisis and ensuring timely payment for nonprofit partners.
The Chair emphasizes the commission's independence and commitment to hearing from a broad spectrum of New Yorkers.
- He also addresses recent press reports, clarifying that the commission is not considering reducing the role of community boards.
- Testimony on any topic is welcome.
Richard R. Buery Jr.
0:00:04
Good evening.
0:00:04
I'm sorry we're getting to a late start, but I wanna welcome you all to this public hearing of the New York City Charter Revision Commission.
0:00:12
My name is Richard Burry.
0:00:14
I am deeply honored to be able to serve as the chair of this commission.
0:00:19
Our mission is to look at the ways to make the city government more transparent and responsive with a particular focus on the city's housing crisis.
0:00:29
It is our responsibility to review the entire charter and suggest changes for voters' consideration.
0:00:35
Importantly, only if voters agree to those changes at an election will any changes to the charter go into effect.
0:00:43
I know that I speak for my fellow commissioners when I say that we are deeply committed to hearing from a broad spectrum of New Yorkers and to pursuing the best ideas we can find.
0:00:53
This hearing is just one of many public hearings across every borough to hear ideas from experts, from community leaders, from elected officials, and indeed, from any member of the public who wishes to testify.
0:01:05
So greatly appreciate for the lady who would take your time on this beautiful beautiful weather.
0:01:13
This beautiful temperate weather to join us this evening.
0:01:17
Very importantly, I think it's important to remember that this is an independent commission.
0:01:22
Although appointed by the mayor, we are not bound by any elected officials' opinions.
0:01:28
In making our recommendations to the city's voters, we are bound only by our judgment and by our values.
0:01:33
We'll pursue any idea regardless of who proposes them and regardless of who supports them.
0:01:40
Joining me in this task are 12 other commissioners, some of whom I believe are remote and others I know are in transit.
0:01:46
Vice chair Sharon Greenberger, secretary Leila Buzarg, Grace Bonilla, Sham DeBaron, Anita Lare We are also particularly interested in how to ensure that nonprofit partners who provide so many of the vital services that we as New Yorkers depend on are paid on time for their work.
0:02:12
As folks here probably know, we recently released a lengthy preliminary report.
0:02:16
The staff, I should say, recently released a lengthy preliminary report summarizing what we've heard at public hearings so far and identifying areas to explore going forward.
0:02:27
That report is available at nyc.gov/charter.
0:02:31
That's nyc.govcharter.
0:02:35
As the report reflects, your thoughtful testimony have driven and will continue to drive this process as it unfolds.
0:02:42
One thing I'll name, although, you know, there would not normally be in the in the habit of commenting on some of the press reports.
0:02:48
I do wanna name one thing because there have been a lot of reports recently about that this charter is intending to reduce the role of community boards.
0:02:57
And one thing I can say is that there's nothing in our recommendations, nothing that are that we're considering that reflects reducing the role of committee boards or the time in which they have to consider a proposal.
0:03:09
So I do wanna name that as it may be something on people's minds because I know it's something that has been coming up in in news reports about the commission's work.
0:03:17
I will say today, although I named some of the things that we are focusing on, testimony on any topic is welcome in today's hearing.
0:03:24
So do not feel limited by the three subjects that I happened to mention at the top of my remarks.
0:03:30
I wanna say a few words about how the hearing will unfold.
0:03:35
As a general matter, we wanna focus on making sure we hear from those who are present before turning to virtual testimony.
0:03:42
We may have a couple of exceptions to that, but we're gonna try to make sure that the people who made the time to come up here can testify first.
0:03:49
I'm gonna ask that members of republic testify for no longer than three minutes.
0:03:54
We're gonna call two people at a time for public testimony.